How to space feedings overnigth?

[ana17682]

I'm having issues getting my 5 week old daughter to sleep more than 2-3 hours at night. She was 7lbs 7oz at birth and rigth now she is taking 4oz every 3 hours. The problem that we have is that she sometimes gets very gassy and has a hard time finishing her bottle, when this happens our feeding time lasts up to an hour. Other times, she gets very sleepy and is hard to keep her up to finish her bottle... With all this going on, i understand that she wakes up during the nigth trying to catch up on the food she didn't finish during the day. However, we also have some good days when she drinks all her bottles, and even if we do cluster feeds every 2 hours a couple of times before bedtime, she would wake up 2 hours after her last cluster feed demanding more food (sometimes this is before 10, so it eliminates the dream feed), and then she would still demand food every 3 hours at night, so she would for sure wake up at least 2 more times. It is getting very frustrating as on good days, i sometimes have to get her up for her feeds otherwise she could probably nap for at least 3 hours! Help! What am i doing wrong?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

You aren't doing anything wrong...she is just little still...are the bottles formula or ebm? Not that formula is a guarantee for getting better sleep at night but bm is more easily digested and at 5 weeks I would expect some nightfeeds.

The gassy bit stands out to me, is it possible she needs a faster flow nipple or a different style of bottle? I mixed fed my older two and they were generally able to finish a bottle (with burp breaks!) fairly quickly if I remember right.

[Lolly]

At this age even if you get all good feeds in during the day and clusters and a dreamfeed she is still going to need those night feeds. 2 night feeds at 5 weeks is totally normal, some will need 3.

As she gets older they will space out more but for now if she wakes and it's been at least 3 hours since the last feed it will be hunger so feed and resettle back to sleep as soon as possible.

I agree with Heidi about the bottles though, some are better at eliminating gas than others and the teat flow can also make a difference. How much is she taking at a feed at the moment? A bottle feed should be done in about 20 mins, if you keep bottles for much longer you get into snacking and that will have an impact on the next feed.

Enjoy her while she is still so little though - there aren't many of us that managed to get EASY working with tiny babies.

Laura

[ana17682]

Thank you both for the reply! It is very useful information and its much appreciated. The reason it takes us so long with her feedings when she is gassy is because swe have to burp her almost after every other sip she takes on the bottle. We tried switching to a different formula wich is suposed to be for gassy babies and the situation has improoved a little, but not a lot. She seems to be in a lot of pain when she gets gassy and it gets to be very frustratin because i see shes hungry and wants to finish her bottle but every time she takes a sip she looks like shes in pain. Do you really think that a fasterr flow nipple migth help??? Im a little nervous to try that as very seldom she seems to choke on the formula, but im not sure if its mostly cause shes faling sleep on the job...

[Lolly]

Does she stop feeding or are you stopping her to burp? Have you tries gas drops at all? We have infacol in the UK which has simeticone as an active ingredient, you will have something similar where you are I'm sure. It may be worth a try but you need to keep it up for a while as it has a cumulative effect.

Which bottles are you using? Dr Brown's are very good at reducing the amount of air they take in, I was surprised at the difference they make. Is she latching onto the bottle properly? A faster teat can help as sometimes they take in too much air because they are sucking too hard.

Laura

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I second Dr Brown's....have worked great for us.  The drops we get here are called Ovol but same thing as Infacol.